Magnus Carlsen

World Champion 2013 – 2023, 5-time title match winner (2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2021)

Highest Elo rating in history: 2882

Ranking: world number one since January 2010 with a short break in 2011, a total of 182 months

Tournament career: 46 victories in super-tournaments:

2013 Candidates Tournament

Chess World Cup 2023

8-time Tata Steel Masters winner

7-time Norway Chess winner

4-time London Chess Classic, Shakmir Chess winner

3-time Bilbao Chess Masters winner

2-time Sinquefield Cup, Tal Memorial, Biel Festival, Grenke Classic winner

and several others…

Chess Olympiad: 2-time individual bronze medalist on the first board

Why he deserves it:

Magnus Carlsen has been the world number one for the last fifteen years and is undoubtedly the biggest star of this current chess era. His dominance was and in certain respects still is so great yet long-lasting that he undoubtedly deserves his place among the best players in the history of the royal game. He became the world number one in 2010 and has been continuously since 2011 until now. He recorded the highest FIDE Elo rating in history, a colossal 2882. The largest lead he had over the second man in the ranking was 74 points. He has won over forty super-tournaments. From 2013 to 2023, he was the sixteenth world champion. It is often said that Magnus completed chess, and it is true. He has won every significant title that can currently be won: World Championship, Candidates Tournament, World Cup, Tata Steel Masters, Norway Chess, Sinquefield Cup, London Chess Classic, Tal Memorial, and so on…

Carlsen was a talent from a young age. He became the Norwegian champion for the first time at sixteen and at the same time became a candidate for the World Championship for the first time. He had a breakthrough year in 2007. In Biel, Switzerland, he recorded his first victory in a super-tournament, winning a tie-break with Alexander Onischuk and finishing better than Grischuk, Radjabov, or Polgar. That same year, he lost the first round of the Candidates Matches to Aronian. In 2008, he broke into the top ten players in the world. A year later, at the Pearl Spring tournament in Nanjing, he played the best tournament of his life. In competition with elite players, he scored 8/10, and at that time, his performance for this tournament was the second highest in history. He was not yet twenty years old, but this was probably the moment when most people realized that Carlsen would be the world number one and probably also the world champion. The first came true within a year. We had to wait a little longer for the second.

If we had to choose one date when Magnus’s era began, it would probably be January 1, 2010. On that day, the Norwegian appeared for the first time at the top of the world at nineteen. During 2010, he won four strong super-tournaments and continued in a similar spirit in the following years. However, he did not participate in the nearest World Championship cycle because he did not like the system and considered the Matches as a format outdated. In the following cycle, the Candidates Tournament format was restored, which has lasted to this day. Carlsen won it on his first attempt in 2013 on better tiebreaks ahead of Kramnik.

Carlsen entered the world championship match with Anand as a clear favorite and confirmed this role, as well as in the rematch a year later. Chess once again had a clear king, a player who was the world champion, world number one, and clearly superior to the rest of the field. Chess has only had a few such clear rulers in history, and not every world champion is among them. Magnus defended his title in 2016 against Karjakin in a match that went to a tie-break. The following match against Caruana in 2018 also ended in a tie-break – the only match in World Championship history where all games (except the tie-break) ended in a draw. That match was, from a certain perspective, the best title match ever played; at the same time, it was the moment in Carlsen’s career when his throne wobbled the most. Carlsen and Caruana were the clear number one and two in the ranking at that time, separated by only three Elo points. A single victory by the American would have decided not only the new world champion but also the world number one. Both had their chances in the match, but both also defended brilliantly. Carlsen sportingly acknowledged after the match that there was no difference between them in classical chess. However, he was clearly stronger in the tie-break. Carlsen last defended his title in 2021 against Nepomniachtchi.

He then gave up further world championship title defenses due to a loss of motivation and the demanding preparation for these matches. This went hand in hand with his slow departure from the world of classical chess to the world of rapid, blitz, online chess, and freestyle chess. This probably cost him the first place in this ranking because if he had continued to play classical chess fully for a few more years, I would very likely have had no choice but to declare him the best player in history. Carlsen is still active enough to avoid inactivity and thus maintains his position as world number one. But he plays only a minimum of serious games a year.

Whether Carlsen will ever return to the World Championship cycles remains unclear, but it is not very likely. Without motivation, it is difficult to play, and Carlsen is slowly aging, and a new generation of opponents has emerged who are not as afraid of him as the previous one. However, even if Carlsen never played another game for the rest of his career, his place among the top three players in history is certain in every ranking.

Best games:

Magnus Carlsen vs Ian Nepomniachtchi

World Championship Match 2021, Dubai, Round 6